David Lane interviews David Hinchliffe,
former Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Health

Politics

David Hinchliffe was Member of Parliament for Wakefield from 1987 until he stood down in 2005, a period of nearly eighteen years at Westminster, but his interest in politics went back a long way before his election. He joined the Labour Party at the age of 16, and won a by-election at the age of 22, taking a seat on Wakefield City Council (as it then was) from the Conservatives.

Looking back on this experience, he recalls that he had the distinction of being ruled out of order by the Mayor when he made his maiden speech – and deserved it. He stood down from 1974 to 1978 while he was studying for a higher degree, but was then elected as Councillor on Wakefield Metropolitan District Council, a role he only gave up after he had been MP for twelve months.

David therefore has a long pedigree as Councillor and Member of Parliament, and he has many achievements under his belt. Throughout this time, he has never given up his identity as a socialist, with a keen desire to right social injustices.

Social Work

In parallel for much of this time, David had a career as a social worker. He started (before Social Services Departments were set up) in Leeds City Welfare Department, whose remit was to work with older people and adults with disabilities. However, his work involved him much of the time with homeless families and so he got to deal with childcare problems too.

He trained at what was then Leeds Polytechnic, obtaining his Certificate in Social Work (CSW) and Certificate of Qualification in Social Work (CQSW), being one of the interim group who obtained both awards as CCETSW was being established. A formative experience during this time was a training placement in Derbyshire, in the Doe Lea area near Bolsover, where he saw real poverty, which created a burning desire to better marginalised people’s lives.

This placement happened to coincide with a General Election in which a new candidate for Bolsover was putting out his banners, which read “Skinner for Winner”, as indeed he was.

Returning to work for Leeds in the new Social Services Department, David took on a generic caseload, and moved up the ladder speedily (there being few qualified workers in those days), becoming first Senior Social Worker and then taking over an Area Team. He recalls the failures of those days as well as the successes – the cases where child protection measures failed despite the best of intentions – and he says that “they stick with you, and you never forget”.

Action

While David did his social work in Leeds, he did his politics in Wakefield. It was an era when Sir Jack Smart was in charge, and David was one of a group of younger Councillors who were seen as firebrands. When cuts had to be made in 1984, the closure of some day nurseries was proposed, perhaps as a gesture. If so, it became a very public gesture, as David and a few other Councillors occupied the nurseries, which attracted the country’s media and court action to evict them. Although this event caused a rift in the local Labour Party, it did not affect the respect people felt for David.

Parliament

Standing for Parliament was the logical next step up from local politics. David says he was profoundly angered at the conditions in which people had to live, and he was frustrated at what could be achieved locally. “You forget how bad it was”, he recalls. He wanted to have an impact on legislation and resources. David was selected as a candidate for Wakefield at the first ballot and took over the seat when Walter Harrison retired.

There was then a Conservative Government and he feels he was fortunate to have been picked to sit on the Committee stages of what became the Children Act 1989. He was particularly impressed by David Mellor’s style of chairing the discussions, which included off-the-record sessions which let Members of all parties try out ideas and develop their thinking freely.

The Children Act 1989 was a major piece of legislation, surprisingly liberal in view of the Government’s general stance, but retrospectively David feels that it did not achieve what the politicians hoped for. They had wanted to create a strong preventative service, keeping children out of care as far as possible, but the implementation of the Act skewed things, because of the circumstances in which Social Services Departments found themselves.

He was also invited to serve on the Health Committee, then chaired by Nicholas Winterton. From these experiences David feels that he learnt a lot about parliamentary processes, and what could realistically be achieved in working across party boundaries (for example, with Virginia Bottomley, who as Minister had good ideas) and with civil servants (such as Rupert Hughes, who masterminded much of the Children Act 1989).

The Labour Party was then under John Smith’s leadership, and David became opposition spokesman on social services, later specialising in services for adults and older people. During this time he oversaw the development of a detailed policy for children and families, called Beyond the Children Act. He was keen to see more emphasis put on prevention, especially following the skewed implementation of the Children Act 1989.

When Labour came into power, however, he declined a post in the Government, as Tony Blair made it clear that David’s vision of an integrated health and social care service was too radical and would not be supported. David was therefore pleasantly surprised in 1997 to be invited to become Chair of the House of Commons Select Committee on Health, which also covered social services.

The Health Select Committee

Select Committees are perhaps the greatest parliamentary legacy of Norman St John Stevas, and they have often acted as a virtual opposition (sometimes in the absence of a strong second party) in questioning the effectiveness of the Government’s plans and actions or in identifying areas of concern on which the Government needs to act. Chairing the Health Select Committee gave David the springboard for him – and his colleagues - to investigate a wide range of subjects and to have a real impact on Government policy.

Among the children’s issues covered while he was Chair was a joint investigation into the educational attainments of children in care. When talking to looked-after children, David found that their main complaints were not about the residential or foster care they had experienced but about schooling and the way they were often excluded.

Another major issue was to bring into the open the question of child migrants. Starting back in the nineteenth century, but up to the 1960s, children had been sent by the major charities to populate the former colonies and dominions. Although placements had been arranged for them, they were often appallingly abused and exploited. Even worse, they had been cut off from their families in the United Kingdom, and they were deprived of information. David was part of a delegation which visited Australia and New Zealand, and they received harrowing evidence of the impact of this policy. The outcome was the creation of a travel fund to permit former migrants to make contact with their families again.

Other topics covered by the Health Select Committee, such as the studies of obesity and sexual health, took a close look at the ways in which children were affected.

Unfinished Business

David acknowledges that, although he finds Tony Blair personally likeable with a good sense of humour, he is “not a fan of New Labour”. He was – and is – opposed to the Iraq War. He is disillusioned with the role given to the private sector in the National Health Service.

Inevitably, there are pieces of unfinished business. The current law on smacking children is unsatisfactory in David’s view, and will not work. The Children’s Commissioner does not have the powers he should have – though he sees Al Aynsley-Green as a good appointment. Both these failures David lays at Margaret Hodge’s door; he feels she could have got both matters resolved. He has more faith, though, in Beverley Hughes getting things done and fighting her corner.

A Hinterland

Having had such an impact, why did David decide to leave Westminster? He says that Dennis Healey had argued that politicians should always have a hinterland – other areas of activity and interests outside politics. Some politicians live politics and have no other life; not so with David. He has been a keen caravanner; he enjoys walking in the Yorkshire Dales; he owns a narrow boat; he is an enthusiast for sport, but especially Rugby League, in which he follows the Wakefield Trinity Wildcats. (This interest overlapped into politics in the action he took to prevent Rugby Union discriminating against people who had played Rugby League.)

More recently he has taken up an interest in local and regional history, and he is researching his family, reckoning that the Hinchliffes are of Norse extraction and have lived in Yorkshire within a radius of fifteen miles or so for the last thousand years. In the course of these studies, David has become an expert on Robin Hood, and he used parliamentary time to promote acceptance of Robin Hood as a Yorkshire man.

Now it is time for the hinterland to come first. But David’s career indicates the impact that one person can have, using local and national government processes to influence legislation and follow up causes in the interests of improving the opportunities open to marginalised people. David’s work will have affected many lives, including thousands of children who will have been unaware of the impact he has had on the legislation which directly affects them. Those who have observed his work on the Select Committee or as a constituency MP, though, are well aware of the debt which they owe him.